[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…[/quote]
This picture says something about national debt whereas the posts you quoted said something about the financial crisis, so it actually doesn’t say very much, much less “it all.”
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…[/quote]
This picture says something about national debt whereas the posts you quoted said something about the financial crisis, so it actually doesn’t say very much, much less “it all.”[/quote]
By the way, do you count the tax cuts enacted under George Bush under his column, or under Obama’s? How about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, surely they can’t be added to Obama’a column since he had literally nothing to do with their starting? And do you account for tax revenue lost during a recession which came as a result of a financial collapse which happened entirely before Obama was president of the country?
So, that picture isn’t exactly the whole story, is it? More like a cheap gimmick passed around the internet on conservative email chains. And we all know that partisan email chains are the best sources of information out there.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…[/quote]
This picture says something about national debt whereas the posts you quoted said something about the financial crisis, so it actually doesn’t say very much, much less “it all.”[/quote]
A common expression meaning it says a lot. Is that the only cherry you have to pick? The Dems largely created the financial crisis with the Community Reinvestment Act(1977,) the purchase of subprime loans/derivatives by Freddie Mac and Fannie May(1992,) the establishment of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund(1995) and the TARP program(2008/09) which finally burst the housing bubble. If that wasn’t enough they then bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie May and allocated nearly a trillion dollars to buy up more bad debt, throwing good money after bad. Obviously, the Federal Reserve played a role and other factors such as massive short selling by hedge traders on behalf of foreign governments played a part in the market collapse.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Being pissed about Iraq I can understand…
[/quote]
I can only understand it to the extent that I understand that many people who yap on and on about the Iraq War being unnecessary are the ones who weren’t even a gleam in Daddy’s eye, or at least still in diapers, when the first war, the Persian Gulf War, was fought. And if one doesn’t understand the FACT that the two wars are inextricably tied together and in essence one war then he is going to fall for the inaccurate talking points that the Iraq War was a complete travesty of reason and an “unjust war.”
I don’t buy it.
There was a list of good reasons a mile long for thumping Saddam. One may look back now with 20/20 hindvision and surmise we shouldn’t have gone in at the time but at the time it was a pretty damn unified school of thought, Demos and Repubs alike, that it was the right thing to do.
[/quote]
What items populate this list other than phantom WMD?
Saddam was an evil man…evil men abound. We traded one untethered murderer for one hundred thousand.
I was living in Europe during much of the Iraq war. European newspapers will regularly show pictures that would never see the light of day in an American publication. I’m sure we’ve all seen the ugly side of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but this was nearly every day: American kids–and I do mean kids–charred like pork left an hour too long on the grill. Faces twisted in a combination of shock and pain and maybe some deep deep sadness. Innards spread along the floor. For the ones who were unlucky enough to live a while after the detonation or the gunshot, you could almost smell the shit in their pants.
There is nothing glorious about war. I know it’s sometimes necessary and I have nothing but respect for the men and women who wage it on our behalf, but for their sake it damn sure better be the only option.[/quote]
Not to mention the act that to say that it cost a fortune is an egregious understatement. A libertarian should think more than twice about burning an unfathomably large pile of other people’s cash in order to send soldiers into a country thousands of miles away which poses no direct national security threat to anyone outside of the region, let alone the most powerful nation on earth.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…[/quote]
This picture says something about national debt whereas the posts you quoted said something about the financial crisis, so it actually doesn’t say very much, much less “it all.”[/quote]
A common expression meaning it says a lot. Is that the only cherry you have to pick? The Dems largely created the financial crisis with the Community Reinvestment Act(1977,) the purchase of subprime loans/derivatives by Freddie Mac and Fannie May(1992,) the establishment of the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund(1995) and the TARP program(2008/09) which finally burst the housing bubble. If that wasn’t enough they then bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie May and allocated nearly a trillion dollars to buy up more bad debt, throwing good money after bad. Obviously, the Federal Reserve played a role and other factors such as massive short selling by hedge traders on behalf of foreign governments played a part in the market collapse.
[/quote]
Everybody had a hand in this.
Irresponsible homeowners and idiotic moneymen who invented and then played around with financial instruments that they didn’t even actually understand bear the precipitating blame.
The deep causes extend well beyond party lines.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
By the way, do you count the tax cuts enacted under George Bush under his column, or under Obama’s?
[/quote]
Under Bush’s of course. That was a decade ago and the U.S. hasn’t had any tax cuts since.
No, they go under Saddam’s/Al Qaeda’s column.
For every $7 dollars of tax revenue raised Obama spends $11. That’s living nearly 40% beyond your means. And where does all that money go? Eco-cronies and stimulus recipients who happen to be Obama donors/friends and welfare/food stamps/Medicaid etc. He has also massively expanded the federal government creating an army of bureaucrats.
[quote]
So, that picture isn’t exactly the whole story, is it? More like a cheap gimmick passed around the internet on conservative email chains. And we all know that partisan email chains are the best sources of information out there.[/quote]
Are you going to do this every time I post a meme? I’ve given you the facts. Happy to provide more information.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
By the way, do you count the tax cuts enacted under George Bush under his column, or under Obama’s?
[/quote]
Under Bush’s of course. That was a decade ago and the U.S. hasn’t had any tax cuts since.
No, they go under Saddam’s/Al Qaeda’s column.
For every $7 dollars of tax revenue raised Obama spends $11. That’s living nearly 40% beyond your means. And where does all that money go? Eco-cronies and stimulus recipients who happen to be Obama donors/friends and welfare/food stamps/Medicaid etc. He has also massively expanded the federal government creating an army of bureaucrats.
[quote]
So, that picture isn’t exactly the whole story, is it? More like a cheap gimmick passed around the internet on conservative email chains. And we all know that partisan email chains are the best sources of information out there.[/quote]
Are you going to do this every time I post a meme? I’ve given you the facts. Happy to provide more information.[/quote]
The tax cuts are still in effect and are therefore being added to Obama’s column despite the fact that he favored letting them at least partially expire. And the wars do add to his column, though he didn’t start them (not exactly a fair doling of responsibility). And the recession has cost a MOUNTAIN of tax revenue, which would have manifested as elevated debt for whichever President followed Bush (barring drastic spending cuts, which aren’t exactly standard prescribed medicine during a recession).
Otherwise, yes he is a spendthrift and yes, it is unsustainable.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
The tax cuts are still in effect and are therefore being added to Obama’s column despite the fact that he favored letting them at least partially expire.
[/quote]
I don’t credit Obama with the Bush tax cuts and I don’t know of anyone who does.
He’s made drastic cuts to the military and metaphorically waved the white flag to every lunatic regime on the planet. Also, the wars many would argue were necessary - the stimulus/bailouts and massive spending on welfare were not necessary. And to give you an idea of the scale, the federal bailout "far exceeds nine of the costliest events in American history combined:
Marshall Plan - $115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase - $217 billion
Race to the Moon - $237 billion
S & L Crisis - $236 billion
Korean War - $454 billion
The New Deal - $500 billion
Invasion of Iraq - $597 billion
Vietnam War - $698 billion
NASA - $851.2 billion"
Total = Over $3.9 trillion. Obama spends like a drunken navy. The cost of the wars is nothing compared to Obama’s massive expeniditures on bailouts, social programs and federal bureaucracy. Welfare spending alone has jumped 32% since Obama took office.
It may not be “standard” medicine but it works. Good article in the WSJ summarised here by Team Romney:
http://m.mittromney.com/news/press/2012/08/sen-phil-gramm-tale-two-recoveries”
It compares Reagan’s recovery with Obama’s and the respective results are startling.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
The tax cuts are still in effect and are therefore being added to Obama’s column despite the fact that he favored letting them at least partially expire.
[/quote]
I don’t credit Obama with the Bush tax cuts and I don’t know of anyone who does.
He’s made drastic cuts to the military and metaphorically waved the white flag to every lunatic regime on the planet. Also, the wars many would argue were necessary - the stimulus/bailouts and massive spending on welfare were not necessary. And to give you an idea of the scale, the federal bailout "far exceeds nine of the costliest events in American history combined:
Marshall Plan - $115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase - $217 billion
Race to the Moon - $237 billion
S & L Crisis - $236 billion
Korean War - $454 billion
The New Deal - $500 billion
Invasion of Iraq - $597 billion
Vietnam War - $698 billion
NASA - $851.2 billion"
Total = Over $3.9 trillion. Obama spends like a drunken navy. The cost of the wars is nothing compared to Obama’s massive expeniditures on bailouts, social programs and federal bureaucracy. Welfare spending alone has jumped 32% since Obama took office.
It may not be “standard” medicine but it works. Good article in the WSJ summarised here by Team Romney:
http://m.mittromney.com/news/press/2012/08/sen-phil-gramm-tale-two-recoveries”
It compares Reagan’s recovery with Obama’s and the respective results are startling.[/quote]
Have all those figures been adjusted for inflation?
[quote]nickj_777 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
The tax cuts are still in effect and are therefore being added to Obama’s column despite the fact that he favored letting them at least partially expire.
[/quote]
I don’t credit Obama with the Bush tax cuts and I don’t know of anyone who does.
He’s made drastic cuts to the military and metaphorically waved the white flag to every lunatic regime on the planet. Also, the wars many would argue were necessary - the stimulus/bailouts and massive spending on welfare were not necessary. And to give you an idea of the scale, the federal bailout "far exceeds nine of the costliest events in American history combined:
Marshall Plan - $115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase - $217 billion
Race to the Moon - $237 billion
S & L Crisis - $236 billion
Korean War - $454 billion
The New Deal - $500 billion
Invasion of Iraq - $597 billion
Vietnam War - $698 billion
NASA - $851.2 billion"
Total = Over $3.9 trillion. Obama spends like a drunken navy. The cost of the wars is nothing compared to Obama’s massive expeniditures on bailouts, social programs and federal bureaucracy. Welfare spending alone has jumped 32% since Obama took office.
It may not be “standard” medicine but it works. Good article in the WSJ summarised here by Team Romney:
http://m.mittromney.com/news/press/2012/08/sen-phil-gramm-tale-two-recoveries”
It compares Reagan’s recovery with Obama’s and the respective results are startling.[/quote]
Have all those figures been adjusted for inflation?[/quote]
Yes. Here are the non-adjusted figures:
Marshall Plan - $12.7 billion
Louisiana Purchase - $15 million
Race to the Moon - $36.4 billion
S & L Crisis - $153 billion
Korean War - $54 billion
The New Deal - $32 billion
Invasion of Iraq - $551 billion
Vietnam War - $111 billion
NASA - $416 billion
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Being pissed about Iraq I can understand…
[/quote]
I can only understand it to the extent that I understand that many people who yap on and on about the Iraq War being unnecessary are the ones who weren’t even a gleam in Daddy’s eye, or at least still in diapers, when the first war, the Persian Gulf War, was fought. And if one doesn’t understand the FACT that the two wars are inextricably tied together and in essence one war then he is going to fall for the inaccurate talking points that the Iraq War was a complete travesty of reason and an “unjust war.”
I don’t buy it.
There was a list of good reasons a mile long for thumping Saddam. One may look back now with 20/20 hindvision and surmise we shouldn’t have gone in at the time but at the time it was a pretty damn unified school of thought, Demos and Repubs alike, that it was the right thing to do.
[/quote]
Here’s what it looked like, in case anyone has forgotten or was still soiling their diapers when it happened. Sometimes, the way it gets told, you’d think GW rode onto the Senate floor on a rodeo bull, one hand on the ties and his War Resolution signing pen in the other, and did the whole thing himself without even losing his cowboy hat.
Cheers I wonder what the return on the Louisiana Purchase was? Its funny that the parts that were returned to Canada (bottoms of Alberta and Saskatchewan) have the highest potassium nitrate deposits and bitumen reserves.
[quote]Cortes wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Being pissed about Iraq I can understand…
[/quote]
I can only understand it to the extent that I understand that many people who yap on and on about the Iraq War being unnecessary are the ones who weren’t even a gleam in Daddy’s eye, or at least still in diapers, when the first war, the Persian Gulf War, was fought. And if one doesn’t understand the FACT that the two wars are inextricably tied together and in essence one war then he is going to fall for the inaccurate talking points that the Iraq War was a complete travesty of reason and an “unjust war.”
I don’t buy it.
There was a list of good reasons a mile long for thumping Saddam. One may look back now with 20/20 hindvision and surmise we shouldn’t have gone in at the time but at the time it was a pretty damn unified school of thought, Demos and Repubs alike, that it was the right thing to do.
[/quote]
Here’s what it looked like, in case anyone has forgotten or was still soiling their diapers when it happened. Sometimes, the way it gets told, you’d think GW rode onto the Senate floor on a rodeo bull, one hand on the ties and his War Resolution signing pen in the other, and did the whole thing himself without even losing his cowboy hat.
[/quote]
In fairness those were crazy times and the President had a strong bully pulpit back then. Do we not recall ted, yellow, orange and tangerine threat levels? Anthrax and the shoebomber?
After all this discussion I wonder what makes people want to be president? What really is going on in their head that thinks this is something to seriously pursue?
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
Sadly with our two polarized parties I have to keep voting Democrat. The only way I would swing to a Republican vote would be if they offered up an economic recovery plan so clearly better that it trumped other issues I have with their ticket. I’m not convinced that is the case.[/quote]
The fact you blame the financial crisis on Bush…
You know what, forget it. I don’t have the energy to bother.
[/quote]
This picture says it all…[/quote]
This picture says something about national debt whereas the posts you quoted said something about the financial crisis, so it actually doesn’t say very much, much less “it all.”[/quote]
By the way, do you count the tax cuts enacted under George Bush under his column, or under Obama’s? How about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, surely they can’t be added to Obama’a column since he had literally nothing to do with their starting? And do you account for tax revenue lost during a recession which came as a result of a financial collapse which happened entirely before Obama was president of the country?
So, that picture isn’t exactly the whole story, is it? More like a cheap gimmick passed around the internet on conservative email chains. And we all know that partisan email chains are the best sources of information out there.[/quote]
The tax cuts are largely irrelevant, and used by the current administration to paint a complex situation with a broad brush.
Tax revenues were higher in this country after 2003. The only reason they are so low now is the shit economic situation. Even with Clinton rates, or shit, FDR rates, tax revenues would be in the toilet. Taxes effect behavior, and the higher the rate, the slower money moves. People like to pull out the “high tax rates force re-investment” talking point, but this is a foolish assumption and miss-leading.
The other reason it is miss-leading is because the Rock Star in Chief had two years to change the tax code. Oh he did, but in the form of a health care travesty rather than actual tax reform.
No one likes to point out the reinstatement of the marriage penalty obama is writing back into the tax code. I mean, calling a “war on women” because the GOP doesn’t want Catholic institutions to have to pay for services they don’t believe is, all while instituting rules that make it less advantageous for the wife to have a career…
Why don’t people bring this up? Because the vast majority don’t understand tax, so the point will be lost on people.
[quote]StolyElit wrote:
I would be willing to admit that is a simplified, probably errant statement with regards to Bush and the economic collapse. Still just pissed that somehow we got dragged into Iraq when the only place we ever needed to be was Afghanistan and it cost a lot of money and lives to do both.
We can lay the economic meltdown with the housing bubble, and people fucking us over on wall street and in the banking system which in fairness would have happened under any administration.
There are still a large number of people who believe that Romney and Ryan’s eco plan can’t add up. Is everyone here just complacent to say that its all spin on the Democratic side to discredit them, because I here these guys getting attacked for a lack of detail and specificity with regards to their recovery plan by people on the right and left. [/quote]
I’m not trying to be a dick here, but you sound like an ad.
You’ve hit on just about every talking point, and have appeared to let advertisers and rhetoric do your thinking for you.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Being pissed about Iraq I can understand…
[/quote]
I can only understand it to the extent that I understand that many people who yap on and on about the Iraq War being unnecessary are the ones who weren’t even a gleam in Daddy’s eye, or at least still in diapers, when the first war, the Persian Gulf War, was fought. And if one doesn’t understand the FACT that the two wars are inextricably tied together and in essence one war then he is going to fall for the inaccurate talking points that the Iraq War was a complete travesty of reason and an “unjust war.”
I don’t buy it.
There was a list of good reasons a mile long for thumping Saddam. One may look back now with 20/20 hindvision and surmise we shouldn’t have gone in at the time but at the time it was a pretty damn unified school of thought, Demos and Repubs alike, that it was the right thing to do.
[/quote]
What items populate this list other than phantom WMD?
Saddam was an evil man…evil men abound. We traded one untethered murderer for one hundred thousand.
I was living in Europe during much of the Iraq war. European newspapers will regularly show pictures that would never see the light of day in an American publication. I’m sure we’ve all seen the ugly side of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but this was nearly every day: American kids–and I do mean kids–charred like pork left an hour too long on the grill. Faces twisted in a combination of shock and pain and maybe some deep deep sadness. Innards spread along the floor. For the ones who were unlucky enough to live a while after the detonation or the gunshot, you could almost smell the shit in their pants.
There is nothing glorious about war. I know it’s sometimes necessary and I have nothing but respect for the men and women who wage it on our behalf, but for their sake it damn sure better be the only option.[/quote]
Friend, it was One war. It started in 1990. You were all of what, two years old in 1990? And 12 or 13 in 2001 - 2002? C’mon, don’t claim to offer any valid political insight from a 2 or 12 year old. Sheesh.
If you think the only reasons we returned to Iraq after a 10 year hiatus then you are either too young or haven’t done your history homework in this regard.
There is a long list of reasons besides WMD’s (which Democrats and Republicans believed existed) for America’s second foray into the sand box.
Repeated treaty violations.
Attempted assassination of an ex President of the US.
Renewed threats by Saddam against its neighbors and these came, of course, AFTER he had proved he was willing to invade his neighbors.
Threats against the US.
Acts of war against the US and its allies (during the interim between the wars).
A proven history of using chemical weapons against the Kurds and Iranians.
Military action against his own people.
And more.
Those are just a few off the top of my head without Googling a damn thing. I don’t need to use Google; I wasn’t two years old at the time.
And please note that my post didn’t in any way attempt to glorify war. That is a non sequitur on your part.[/quote]
I think you’re a smart guy, but this is ridiculous. “Don’t criticize the wars because you were young when they happened.”
Do you feel like you can talk about the Great depression, or World War II, or for that matter the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth? By your own logic, you had better keep you mouth shut on those topics, because apparently one has to have been alive and of age during an event in order to be able to discuss it.
Re: your list: once again, regimes like that abound. The North Korean government is by many measures the most oppressive on the planet and has seriously undermined US interests over the course of the past decade. Unlike Iraq in 2003, the North Koreans do have nuclear weapons. And if you’d like to talk about cruelty: an escapee from one of the detention camps–where prisoners are kept not just for the crimes that they commit but for those of their parents and even grandparents–along the Chinese border recently told a journalist that he had been forced to watch his mother be tortured and then executed by guards, a practice that is apparently commonplace. And yet you and everyone else seem content to allow the regime to remain in power.
And lastly, I know you didn’t glorify war. I just believe that most people have in their head a stylized version of war. When they talk about it or consider it as a possibility, their minds fall back on old tropes and motifs, mostly lifted out of movies. I don’t believe so many hawks would be squawking (invariably about the need for a war in which they didn’t participate) if the realities of war were more clear to most people.
Maybe you completely disagree. People do that. But it’s barely fair to say it’s because of my or your age. I’ve never understood the appeal of reminding an opponent of your own decrepitude relative to his vibrant youth.
That last part was a joke.
Iraq was Iran’s natural enemy. Now look.
Even if I agreed with all the reasons for going to war in Iraq, ^^that alone should’ve had veto power.
And I don’t agree with the “reasons” because you can slap most of those on -pick your choice of nutjob here-, The devil you know is always better than the devil you don’t. I’m 50 yrs old.
